hills near Portage Lake adjacent to the University's forest preserve in that vicinity. All seemed well pleased, and action to secure a part of "Peach Mountain" for the new Observatory site was begun. An appropriation of $1,525 was authorized in September to secure the site, but real-estate complications delayed the purchase. Tentative plans were being developed for the construction of a large reflecting telescope (seventy-five inches), the refiguring of the 37 ½-inch reflector to adapt it for photographic rather than visual work, and the return of the twenty-seven-inch Lamont refractor from South Africa (see Part III: Lamont-Hussey Observatory) for double-star work in the North after completion of the southern survey. This program, it was thought, would again bring the institution and its equipment to a prominent position in the astronomical world.
Another project begun but not completed during Professor Hussey's administration was the Angell Hall Observatory and astronomical laboratory for student use. The need of more adequate facilities for this purpose had long been felt, as the number of students electing astronomy had increased rapidly since 1905. The Students' Observatory, previously described, was discontinued in the fall of 1923, when it had to be removed from the site of Couzens Hall. To meet this need the entire fifth floor of Angell Hall was originally designed for the use of the Department of Astronomy, although parts of that floor have temporarily been relinquished for other purposes.
Two twenty-four-foot domes were included in the plans, and later constructed by J. W. Fecker. A ten-inch refracting telescope was ordered from Warner and Swasey to occupy one part, and a reflecting telescope for the other was left to be provided in the future. The two domes by Fecker were erected, and the ten-inch refractor was installed in the first year of the directorship of Ralph Hamilton Curtiss, 1926-27.
The two-prism spectrograph constructed during Hussey's administration was first used on the large telescope at the main Observatory for about two months early in 1927, but since then has not been put into frequent use.
In 1927-28 a three-inch transit was added to the Angell Hall equipment, and a fifteen-inch pyrex mirror was ordered from J. W. Fecker. Work on the mounting for the reflector was carried on in the Observatory Shop. The mirror arrived on January 24, 1929, and the fifteen-inch reflector was added to the Angell Hall equipment and was ready for student use in 1929-30.
Some progress was made during the administration of Curtiss toward the acquisition of a new site and new instruments for research. The ridge north of Dexter, Michigan, known as Peach Mountain, is cut into two parts by the Huron River. On the west is the site tentatively selected by Hussey; on the east is a slightly lower spur that extends south of Base Lake, on which available space could be obtained.
In November, 1928, Curtiss requested the Regents to secure an option on land in Dexter Township covering this site and extending to the shore of Base Lake. Favorable action was taken, and a part of the land recommended was afterward purchased. The new Observatory project was placed first on the Regents' list of the University's most urgent needs which was presented to the state legislature in 1929. Attention was called to the success of the Observatory under Brünnow, Watson, Hall, and Hussey, and to the impossibility of carrying on scientific work meeting modern improved standards on the old site and with instruments surpassed in size and efficiency at other institutions. The removal of the Observatory,
